How to serialize complicate struct?

[linuxaged]

i have a struct Group like this:

struct vec3 {
	float x, y, z;
};

struct mat4 {
	float d[16];
};

struct Vertex {
	vec3 position;
	vec3 normal;
};

struct Mesh {
	cista::raw::vector<mat4> transforms;
	cista::raw::vector<Vertex> vertices;
};
using Meshes = cista::raw::vector<Mesh>;

struct Staging {
	int stepIndex;
	cista::raw::vector<float> distances;
	cista::raw::vector<vec3> translations;
	cista::raw::vector<vec3> rotations;
};
using Stagings = cista::raw::vector<Staging>;

struct Group {
	Meshes meshes;
	Stagings stagings;
}

have not found any similar example.

[felixguendling]

The only struct that requires custom serialization, deserialization (and hash if you want to use type hashing for versioning) is mat4 because C arrays are not supported. But I would just use cista::array<float, 16> which has exactly the same properties as a C array (inside, it is a C array) but it's supported by Cista out of the box.

With this change, there is nothing you need to do. You can just call serialize and deserialize. I made a test case from your code:

cista/test/mesh_test.cc

Lines 13 to 79 in 2855eee

	struct vec3 {
	float x, y, z;
	};
	struct mat4 {
	data::array<float, 16> d;
	};
	struct Vertex {
	vec3 position;
	vec3 normal;
	};
	struct Mesh {
	data::vector<mat4> transforms;
	data::vector<Vertex> vertices;
	};
	using Meshes = data::vector<Mesh>;
	struct Staging {
	int stepIndex;
	data::vector<float> distances;
	data::vector<vec3> translations;
	data::vector<vec3> rotations;
	};
	using Stagings = data::vector<Staging>;
	struct Group {
	Meshes meshes;
	Stagings stagings;
	};
	TEST_CASE("mesh test") {
	constexpr auto const FILENAME = "group.bin";
	std::remove(FILENAME);
	{
	Group g;
	Mesh m;
	m.transforms.emplace_back(mat4{0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 0.0,
	1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0});
	g.meshes.emplace_back(m);
	cista::buf<cista::mmap> mmap{cista::mmap{FILENAME}};
	cista::serialize(mmap, g);
	} // EOL graph
	auto b = cista::file(FILENAME, "r").content();
	auto const g = cista::deserialize<Group>(b);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[0] == 0.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[1] == 1.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[2] == 2.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[3] == 3.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[4] == 4.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[5] == 5.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[6] == 6.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[7] == 7.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[8] == 0.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[9] == 1.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[10] == 2.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[11] == 3.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[12] == 4.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[13] == 5.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[14] == 6.0);
	CHECK(g->meshes[0].transforms[0].d[15] == 7.0);
	}